The three certified breeds of Romanian rabbits and the maximum carrying capacity of the Romanian farmers 1

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1 The three certified breeds of Romanian rabbits and the maximum carrying capacity of the Romanian farmers 1 Camelia F. Oroian, 2 Claudia Balint, 2 Antonia Odagiu, 2 Marian Proorocu 1 University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine Cluj-Napoca, Faculty of Horticulture, Cluj-Napoca, Romania; 2 University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine Cluj-Napoca, Faculty of Agriculture, Cluj-Napoca, Romania. Corresponding author: M. Proorocu, mproorocu@yahoo.com Abstract. Although there were many attempts of the local breeders to create a first Romanian Rabbit breed during the last century, they failed to finish it. Before the 2000 s Romania had no certified rabbit breed. All three rabbit breeds produced and certified in Romania so far have been recently created and consolidated: the Transylvanian Giant Rabbit, the Rabbit of Cluj, and the Szekler Rabbit. These three breeds were certified by the National Livestock Production Agency in 2016 and, having in view the present EU legislation, it is debatable if the forms of homologation according to the old Romanian legislation are necessary as long as the term breed homologation does not exist in the EU legislation. The previous experiences of livestock conservation showed us that large number of breeds and relatively low numbers of breeders can produce populational bottleneck in some breeds, followed by decline and extinction. Therefore, in our opinion three native rabbit breeds are enough for the Romanian rabbit breeders carrying capacity. Key Words: rabbit breeds, Oryctolagus cuniculus, Romanian breeds, ANZ, Entente Européenne. Introduction. Although there were numerous attempts of the breeders to create a Romanian Rabbit breed during the last century, before the 2000 s Romania had no certified rabbit breed. All three rabbit breeds produced and certified in Romania so far have been recently created and consolidated (Petrescu-Mag et al 2009; Botha et al 2011; Botha et al 2015) (Table 1). Three Romanian Rabbit Breeds. The first breed created, with a significant number of broodstock and already well known among the Romanian Rabbit breeders, is the Transylvanian Giant Rabbit (TGR) (Petrescu-Mag et al 2011, 2012, 2014a,b). It was roughly described in the scientific literature for the first time in 2009 (Petrescu-Mag et al 2009) and it was awarded three titles of European Champion (one of them at Leipzig, 2012, and the other two at Metz, 2015). Besides, the breed was presented in several tens of national exhibitions, but also in exhibitions held in Hungary and Serbia. The most important aspect is that this breed was characterized from the morphological, productive and reproductive points of view, and these outcomes were published in a scientific work (Petrescu-Mag et al 2014a), although there are many aspects which could be further investigated (Oroian et al 2016; Gradinaru 2017; Gradinaru & Petrescu-Mag 2017). The second breed presented, the Cluj Rabbit (RC) (Botha et al 2013), should have been the first. The project of creation of the Cluj Rabbit started earlier (2005) than the TGR project (2008), but the spread and consolidation was slower than it happened in the case of TGR. Although the Cluj Rabbit was presented in many exhibitions in the country and abroad, it still needs more farmers to be involved. The last breed, but no less important, is the Szekler Rabbit (SR) (Botha et al 2016), which is largely spread in Romania and in Hungary. A near future mandatory target will be the breed presentation at the European Exhibition Herning, Denmark, 9- Rabbit Gen, 2017, Volume 7, Issue

2 11 th of November, 2018 (see Annex 1). Actually, all three breeds will be prepared for this special event, which is the greatest of this kind in Europe. The national and international recognition of Romanian rabbit breeds Table 1 Romanian rabbit breed The project start year Published in literature Sporadic individuals presented in exhibitions Internationally recognized by the EE* (standardized) Attested in the records of ANZ* (ANZ certified) Rabbit of Cluj Metz, Transylvanian Giant Leipzig, Szekler Rabbit In progress 2016 *EE - Entente Européenne d'aviculture et de Cuniculture; **ANZ National Livestock Production Agency (Agenţia Naţională pentru Zootehnie Prof. dr. G. K. Constantinescu ). These three breeds presented above were certified by ANZ (National Livestock Production Agency - Agenţia Naţională pentru Zootehnie Prof. dr. G. K. Constantinescu ) (Ilyes et al 2016) (see Annexes 2-4) and, having in view the in force EU legislation (Regulamentul privind ameliorarea animalelor), at present (2017), it is debatable if the forms of homologation according to the old Romanian legislation are necessary as long as the term breed homologation does not exist in the EU legislation. Rabbit Farming in Romania. If the Western, Northern or Central European countries have developed systems for intensive rabbit meat production, in Romania most of the rabbits are produced in backyard farming systems (Blaga & Burny 2014). Such small farms can host individuals and most part of their production is consumed within households, while a small number of individuals is sold as broodstock to other beeders. Missing of substantial subvention makes the Romanian farms non-competitive in terms of meat production. Therefore, the rabbit meat from the Romanian market originates from abroad. On the other side, small scale farming specific to Romania promotes animal diversity, exhibition, hobby, and fashion. Compared to the intensive systems of rabbit farming which produce mostly hybrids, Romanian systems hold small numbers of animals and produce mostly pure breed animals. Competitive Romanian breeders are affiliated to the National Federation of the Pigeon, Poultry and Small Animal Breeders from Romania (Federația Națională a Crescătorilor de Porumbei, Păsări și Animale Mici din România, FNCPPAMR). This federation comprises 36 associations and 729 breeders, among which one third are rabbit breeders. The Maximum Carrying Capacity of the Romanian Rabbit Breeders. The previous experiences showed us that large number of breeds and relatively low numbers of breeders can produce populational bottleneck in some breeds, followed by decline and extinction. For instance, Romania has more than 40 pigeon breeds, among which more than ten breeds need reconstruction and consolidation due to bottleneck. On the one side, the bottleneck can often be accompanied by genetic drift and this radically change over time some phenotypes of the old breed. On the other side, after the bottleneck period, the population becomes scarce in variability, another negative effect which affects the health and the productivity of the breed. This is not the case of the three Romanian rabbit breeds, but it may happen in future. The number of rabbit breeds is not yet too high and, paradoxically, this is a good thing. In order to maintain a vigorous breed over decades, the population must have elevated numbers of animals all the time, the population should be spread geographically, while the numbers of breeders should be high enough. In our opinion three native rabbit breeds are enough for the Romanian rabbit breeders carrying capacity. Rabbit Gen, 2017, Volume 7, Issue

3 Acknowledgements. Special thanks to our friends and collaborators Miklos Botha, Ioan Valentin Petrescu-Mag, Zsigmond Rákossy and Ion Liviu Vasile for information and ANZ certificates. References Botha M., Hettig A., Petrescu-Mag I. V., 2011 The Rabbit of Cluj: a new phenotype obtained, maintained and improved in Cluj-Napoca (Transylvania), Romania. ABAH Bioflux 3(1): Botha M., Petrescu-Mag I. V., Hettig A., 2013 The first full morphological description of the Cluj Rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus). North-Western Journal of Zoology 9(2): Botha M., Rákossy Z., Petrescu-Mag I. V., Gavriloaie C., 2015 The Szekler Rabbit born through multiple genotype combination and recombination in order to obtain rare phenotypes in domestic rabbits (Oryctolagus cuniculus). Rabbit Gen 5(1): Botha M., Rakossy Z., Socol C.-T., Ilyes K., Gavriloaie C., Petrescu-Mag I. V., 2016 The Szekler Rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus): Standard for judgment in rabbit exhibitions. Rabbit Gen 6(1):7-19. Blaga B. C., Burny P., 2014 Rabbit production and rabbit market in Romania: The most frequent breeds, half-breeds and their characterization. Rabbit Gen 4(1):1-6. Gradinaru A. C., 2017 The Transylvanian Giant Rabbit: an efficient selection for qualitative and quantitative genetic traits. Rabbit Gen 7(1):1-6. Gradinaru A. C., Petrescu-Mag I. V., 2017 Various traits in rabbits were reported to inherit according to a linkage relation among loci. A review study focused on Albinism and Dominant White Spotting loci. Rabbit Gen 7(1):7-11. Ilyes K., Socol C.-T., Criste F. L., 2016 Romanian cuniculture achievements in terms of breed creation up to Rabbit Gen 6(1): Oroian F. C., Balint C., Gavriloaie C., 2016 Extender dark brings good results for short term but is a bad perspective for the artificial selection of Transylvanian Giant Rabbits. Rabbit Gen 6(1):1-6. Petrescu-Mag R. M., Oroian I. G., Botha M., Covrig I., Petrescu-Mag I. V., 2014a Morphological, productive and reproductive characterization of the Transylvanian giant rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus): first statistical report. North-Western Journal of Zoology 10(2): Petrescu-Mag I. V., Oroian I. G., Botha M., Covrig I., Vesa S. C., 2014b Transylvanian Giant Rabbit (Oryctolagus cuniculus): Rustic means also aggressive. Rabbit Gen 4(1): Petrescu-Mag I. V., Petrescu-Mag R. M., Botha M., Oroian I., 2009 Transylvanian giant rabbit originates from Arieş and Someş areas (Transylvania, Romania), Transylv Rev Syst Ecol Res 7: Petrescu-Mag I. V., Petrescu-Mag R. M., Păsărin B., Pop D., Botha M., Gîlcă V., Bud I., Hoha G., Creangă Ş., 2011 Proposal of standard for the judgement of the exhibition Transylvanian Giant Rabbit. ABAH Bioflux 3(1): Petrescu-Mag I. V., Petrescu-Mag R. M., Viman O., Botha M., Hoha G., Grun E., Creangă Ş., 2012 The Giant of Transylvania: Standard for arbitration in rabbit exhibitions. Rabbit Gen 2(1):1-4. Regulament al Parlamentului European și al Consiliului privind condițiile zootehnice și genealogice aplicabile ameliorării animalelor de reproducție de rasă pură, a porcilor de reproducție hibrizi și a materialului germinativ provenit de la acestea, comerțului cu acestea și introducerii lor în Uniune și de modificare a Regulamentului (UE) nr. 652/2014 și a Directivelor 89/608/CEE și 90/425/CEE ale Consiliului, precum și de abrogare a anumitor acte în sectorul ameliorării animalelor ( Regulamentul privind ameliorarea animalelor ). Rabbit Gen, 2017, Volume 7, Issue

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8 Received: 15 November Accepted: 20 December Published online: 30 December Authors: Camelia Firuţa Oroian, University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine Cluj-Napoca, Faculty of Horticulture, 3-5 Calea Mănăştur Street, Cluj-Napoca , Romania, European Union; Claudia Balint, University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine Cluj-Napoca, Faculty of Agriculture, 3-5 Calea Mănăştur Street, Cluj-Napoca , Romania, European Union, Antonia Odagiu, University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine Cluj-Napoca, Faculty of Agriculture, 3-5 Calea Mănăştur Street, Cluj-Napoca , Romania, European Union, Marian Proorocu, University of Agricultural Sciences and Veterinary Medicine Cluj-Napoca, Faculty of Agriculture, 3-5 Calea Mănăştur Street, Cluj-Napoca , Romania, European Union, This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. How to cite this article: Oroian C. F., Balint C., Odagiu A., Proorocu M., 2017 The three certified breeds of Romanian rabbits and the maximum carrying capacity of the Romanian farmers. Rabbit Gen 7(1): Rabbit Gen, 2017, Volume 7, Issue